


The Time That Is Given Us

by sassgardianlass (misshiss)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Loki Needs a Hug, M/M, References to Lord of the Rings, loss of magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 11:40:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5204465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misshiss/pseuds/sassgardianlass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Bruce wondered when and how and why he had become Loki’s therapist, but it was his job now, and if there was one thing Bruce was good at, it was finding excuses for everyone else’s misdeeds, leaving no comfort for himself. He had a PhD in self-loathing.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Stripped of his powers and confined to the Avengers' tower, Loki has a lot of time to medidate on the nature of good and evil. And his feelings for Bruce Banner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Time That Is Given Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hyperstorms (starchase)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starchase/gifts).



> This is for my precious. <3 No one has ever had a more loyal friend.
> 
> And also because GammaFrost is my not so secret obsession and there should be more of it.

At first Bruce had been vaguely resentful that he was the Chosen. The Chosen, not in a cool and high fantasy kind of way, but the Chosen to deal with Loki. The god hadn’t said much to him, except to ask him where he had his hair cut, just so he could avoid that place. Then he’d settled down in a chair in the corner of the lab, watching with those green eyes of his. Bruce had turned away, bending over his slides under the microscope, and steadfastly ignoring the burn of Loki’s eyes at the back of his head. Just because he couldn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t there, however, and before long Loki hopped off the chair and sidled up to him, his long hair brushing Bruce’s cheek.

“What are you looking at there?” he asked, trying to get a closer look at the slide.

Figuring that it wouldn’t hurt to let him look, Bruce moved aside and let Loki have the microscope. He gingerly reached out with his long, slim fingers, adjusting it to his own height. Bruce knew that there would be dots dancing before Loki’s eyes, looking like tiny Pacmen waltzing or something. They wouldn’t be making _sense_ to him, but Loki certainly looked like they did, a frown creasing his brow.

“These bacteria are dying,” he said. “Should I revive them?”

Bruce hadn’t realised that the organism he had spent the last two months coaxing into existence was, in fact, dying. It had seemed lively enough to him only moments before, but Loki didn’t seem like he was pulling his leg, so he nodded. “If you can, I’d appreciate that.”

For a moment Loki seemed like he wanted to say something else, but then he didn’t. His fingers curled around the edge of the desk, his knuckles turning a paler shade of white under his skin. “I forgot that I can’t. That I don’t have magic anymore.”

Bruce had forgotten about that for a moment, had stupidly assumed that Loki would have done something scientifically sound to revive his failing experiment. But of course that wasn’t the case. Where Bruce would have turned towards his own brain to aid him, Loki had always had his magic to rely on. He wondered what that would be like, to have the most important, vital, life-saving part of himself removed. It wasn’t a path he really wanted to follow.

“It’s okay, you know. It was just an idea and it isn’t important. That thing on the slide, I mean.”

Loki turned his head, the heavy dark mass of his hair falling over his face. His eyes were lurking behind, like a cat’s eye hidden in the underbrush, and Bruce knew he was being measured, weighed and judged. He idly wondered if Loki found him wanting, but didn’t really care. Perhaps it was the first time in his life that he wasn’t bothered. It made something in his chest flare, fanned by the intensity of Loki’s gaze and his complete lack of guilt or shame.

“I can’t do it anymore,” Loki whispered, his voice lower than Bruce had ever heard it. “I can’t.”

His nails were digging into the edge of the desk now, turning bloodless, bending at the edges a little. Bruce knew that sensation all too well, that need to hurt himself. There was a simple medical process behind it: the human brain can only process one primary source of pain at a time. Can’t take something? Hurt yourself until you stop hurting.

Reaching out, he gently uncurled Loki’s fingers. They were beautiful: long, slim and never once betraying their strength under the guise of fragile beauty. Perhaps he should have let Loki hurt himself. It wasn’t like the god didn’t deserve some payback, but he didn’t want him to hurt.

“It’s not important that you can’t. You’re more than your magic, Loki.”

Bruce wondered when and how and why he had become Loki’s therapist, but it was his job now, and if there was one thing Bruce was good at, it was finding excuses for everyone else’s misdeeds, leaving no comfort for himself. He had a PhD in self-loathing.

“It was _mine_ ,” Loki replied after what seemed like an eternity, his voice hoarse like he had been screaming for hours. “It was the one thing they didn’t have to give me. It was mine. They took it.”

“They can give it back,” Bruce said. “They _will_ give it back.”

Loki brushed back his hair and gave Bruce a _look_. He’d seen that in the mirror too often to keep speaking.

-

When Thor had asked him to take care of his brother, Bruce had agreed because he owed Thor. If not for the god, Bruce would have crushed every single bone in Natasha’s body and he would have had one more item on his ever growing list of reasons to hate himself.

 _”There’s no one else I can trust him with, Dr Banner. Please, do take good care of him. I know he doesn’t deserve it after what he has done to New York and Stuttgart, but he_ is _my brother.”_

Bruce was certain that Thor hadn’t had this in mind: Loki sitting on the edge of Bruce’s bed, the raven-wing hair tumbling over his shoulders his only garment. Bruce swallowed so hard, his throat clicked with it. His eyes, his stupid eyes that were only meant to _look out_ for Loki wandered lower, to the inner sides of his thighs. Their milky-rose reminded Bruce of the inner side of a shell. He wondered if they would be just as smooth under his finger tips.

“You’re not supposed to be here, Loki. It’s my room. You can’t just come and go as you please. There are boundaries.” His words sounded like the excuse that they were and, judging by his hitched left eyebrow, Loki knew it too.

“I know that you want this.”

A simple statement without any of Loki’s usual oratory flourishes. Bruce should have counted this as a minor success, but it only left his throat dry and aching with no real explanation. He didn’t want Loki, not the way Loki thought he did anyway. Bruce had given up on wanting things for pleasure or sheer lust because nothing good ever came of that. You couldn’t want things when you were bound to destroy them at the slightest provocation.

“Not like this.”

Grabbing one of his shirts from the back of a chair, he threw the garment at Loki. He didn’t want it like this, didn’t want _this_ for Loki. He wasn’t sure when he’d started wanting things _for_ the god, but he wasn’t going to analyse his own feelings or intentions too closely because he knew he wasn’t going to like what he found there.

“Then how do you want me?” Loki asked. “I can be… whatever you want.”

“And that’s the problem,” Bruce replied, rubbing a tired hand across his face. “I don’t want this Loki-persona you’re so busy cultivating.”

“But you do want me,” Loki insisted, slowly closing his legs. “You want something at any rate. I can always tell.”

Bruce knew what he wanted, even if he wasn’t going to dignify any of it with an actual statement or declaration of intent. Giving Loki too much would only end up in a verbal attack he wasn’t sure he could parry. He was getting too old for this. This was the kind of conversation he should have had as a young man, but he wasn’t young anymore. And Loki was too old to still be spinning in circles, looking for something he could never have.

“I want you to leave.”

Loki did leave without saying anything else, but he did take Bruce’s shirt. He didn’t put it on, but it went with him nevertheless.

-

For a while Loki stopped coming to Bruce’s lab, but JARVIS kept an eye on him for Bruce. He was watching TV most of the time, moving methodically through time until he stopped in 2003. He kept watching the same three movies over and over again. One day Bruce left the lab early to join him on the couch in one of the Avengers’ lounges. No one came here anymore, knowing it was Loki’s lair now. Loki didn’t turn his head when Bruce sat down next to him. He was wearing Bruce’s shirt and nothing else.

“I don’t understand Gandalf,” Loki said at last. “If Bilbo had killed Gollum, none of this would ever have happened.” He gestured at the TV where the Witch King of Angmar and the rest of the Nine were slaying Faramir’s men as they fled from Osgiliath towards Gondor.

Bruce looked away. He’d never been good with ‘The Return of the King’. “My answer, I guess, is two-fold. From a narrative point of view it was necessary to keep Gollum alive. Who else would have led Frodo to Mount Doom? Who else would have put him from all the emotional turmoil and realisation that his life was forfeit, whether he finished his journey or not? But… from an ethical point of view, it’s probably because Professor Tolkien believed that no one deserves to die.”

“You don’t deserve to die,” Loki said.

Bruce would have liked to say that he knew, that it was all right, that he hadn’t been talking about himself anyway. But it would have been a lie.

“Neither do you.”

When Loki looked up at him, his eyes were wide, different. It only lasted for a second and then his black lashes were fanning across his cheeks again and he looked away.

“Professor Tolkien was wrong.”

“Don’t insult the professor. That’s just… wrong.” Bruce felt the hint of a grin tugging at the corners of his lips, suddenly feeling giddy, albeit not in an entirely unpleasant way.

Loki raised an eyebrow at him and opened his mouth to speak. Bruce was fully prepared for some snotty response about how Loki had been Professor Tolkien's inspiration for the character of Gollum in the first place, but then he didn’t. Shifting a little, he rested his head against Bruce’s thigh. He switched back to ‘Fellowship’, starting the journey anew.

For a moment Bruce didn’t know how to breathe or even how to convince his brain that all of this was real, that he was watching ‘The Lord of the Rings’ with a real god in his lap, one he’d just had a discussion of morality with. Or a discussion of their own character, as it were. He finally settled for placing his hand on Loki’s hip, if only so he could reach the bowl of popcorn Loki had sitting on the coffee table beside him.

And that was how he sat for the next nine hours and he wouldn’t have moved away even if Loki had let him, which was downright frightening and, probably, wrong. No, definitely wrong. But he didn’t move and, perhaps, that was his own version of lowering Sting and not slaying Gollum when he was so goddamn vulnerable.


End file.
